The purpose of this site is to highlight the newest and latest additions, changes and updates to the HAR web page.
The mission of Himalayan Art Resources (HAR) website is to create a comprehensive education and research database and virtual museum of Himalayan art.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Collections on the Site

Sometimes I don't think that visitors to the site are aware of how many different museums, institutions and private collections are actually represented on HAR. There is an Outline Page titled Collections Worldwide that lists all of these different collections. For many of the museums we have formal agreements and received the images directly from them, in some cases along with stipulations as to attribution and dating. There are some museums listed on the outline page that we are still trying to include on the site. These collections will not have a HAR link icon following their name.

We don't have formal relationships with all of the museums. For some we have simply taken digital photographs of the Himalayan objects that are on display in their galleries such as for the National Museum of India, the Capital Museum in Beijing, and others. This is only done in museums that allow photography, generally without the use of a camera flash.

There are well over one hundred Private & Photographic Archive Collections on the site. The first thing that you will probably think is that there aren't one hundred names listed on the page just provided. This is true. Most of the private collections prefer to be anonymous and are found under the title of Private Collections and on the outline page are found under the heading of Unnamed Collections. Probably it would be more clear and accurate if we change this to Anonymous Collections. All of theses collections come from all over the world. Some are professionally photographed and others are not. The Photographic Archives are generally collections of images taken of art in situ of murals or architecture in the Himalayan regions, Tibet, Mongolia, etc.

Other museum collection resources on the site can be found through the HAR Links page. Under Subject there are three museum listings : Museums Asia, Museums Europe, and Museums North America. Under North America also see USA Museums by State. These pages were the first attempt by HAR some years ago to try and locate collections of Himalayan art around the world and make them more widely known. These lists are are in desperate need of updating and are quite inaccurate by today's standards and what is currently known. We will try and have these updated in November.

About Me

The mission of the Himalayan Art Resources website (HAR) is to create a comprehensive education and research database and virtual museum of Himalayan art:
First, the website exhibits images of art from museum, university and private collections throughout the world.
Second, the website documents all Himalayan art objects that are known through past or present collections or publications.
Third, the database identifies and catalogues all images (comprised of painting, sculpture, ritual objects, murals, etc.). When an object image is not available for lack of permission from the copyright holder, the database uses a place card image. Book cover images are used for publications and generic place cards for collections.